Happy Anniversary YouTube©!
- 17 févr. 2015
- 4 min de lecture
YouTube is 10. 10 years old since it was created by three PayPal employees. 10 years to reach one billion users each month. 10 years to become the third most consulted website after Google and Facebook. We would then come back on the videos that made YouTube’s history.
So, here we go with all types of videos that made up YouTube from the usual music videos, as well as cats or babies videos, but also more serious videos, concerning politics, tutorials. All of that without forgetting the impossible to miss: YouTube ads.
Its first steps…
The first video was uploaded the 23rd April 2005 by Jawed, one of the creator of the website, and last 18 seconds. Me at the zoo don’t actually have anything particular but it became the first ever-shared video on the network.
However, the first video that really stood out was called Evolution of Dance and was posted online by Judson Laipply and stayed the most-viewed video for three years.
Music on top of views
Though, people’s first thought about YouTube is about music and music videos. And they are right; the most popular videos are made by singers. For example the success of the Gangnam Style’s video isn’t a mystery to anyone: the video was watched by over 2.2 billion people since it was released in July 2012. Most of the world doesn’t understand the lyrics, but the Korean rapper, Psy, horse dance quickly became viral and reached the title of YouTube’s most viewed video.
Psy’s video, is not the only music that is on the top viewed videos, Justin Bieber’s Baby hit 1.1 billion views; followed by singers such as Katy Perry (Dark Horse was seen by 822.2 million people), LMFAO (Party Rock Anthem reached 819 million views), Eminem and Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira…
Yet music videos are not the only videos that we can find on the website, and they are definitely not the only ones that became successful. The website also seen the growth of funny videos, but also tutorials and advertisements.
“Internet is made of cats and babies” Pretty much, yes…
If you are not an expert of funny videos on YouTube, they most likely include, cats, dogs or any kind of cute animals; babies, and fails of all kinds. The most popular of these videos was put up in 2007 and gathered more than 811 million Net surfer. Charlie bit my finger – again is a video of the Carr brothers, in which Charlie, 1 year old, bit Harry’s finger.
… but not only: politics and international news
Stupid and funny videos are a big part of YouTube but there are also some more serious videos that make it to the top, for example Barack Obama quickly understood that if he wanted to reach the public, he would have to use social media. One of his most popular video was his speech during which the slogan “Yes, we can” was first said.
YouTube also became a tool for people to share what is happening in their countries, most of the times in cases of wars, repression, censorship, etc. People from around the world share what they are living and what is really happening in some part of the world where media’s censorship prevent any information to come through.
Wanna learn? You’ve come to the right place
One more serious topic: tutorials. YouTubers can teach you anything, how to play an instrument, beauty tips, make up and hair tutorial, science, history, cooking…It’s free, it’s available to anyone, and the only thing to do is watch and try until you get it. One of the oldest tutorial channel is called Khan Academy with more than 4 400 videos about any school subjects and more than 2 million subscriber.
However, one of the most popular channel is Michelle Phan’s beauty channel and her 7 million subscriber and more than 351 videos. She seduced a wide public with tutorials on make up, hair, skin care, nails or fashion, and now has her own make up brand.
They can be the most hated as well as the most viewed videos: ADS
Most recently, YouTube became a playground for advertisers. I’m not talking about the adds before the actual video, during which we are only waiting to wait on skip. I’m talking about ads that people actually want to watch. The best example was posted in 2014 by Nike (Nike Football: Winner Stays. ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Ibrahimović, Iniesta & more) and became the second most viewed video of the year. The video was seen voluntarily by more than 105 million people. It launched a competition between brands to create better, funnier, longer, more adapted ads which are designed to be seen by Internet users because they actually want to watch them, not because they are shown on TV or because they are put before other YouTube videos.
Job description: YouTube!
The last type of people on YouTube is pretty new but their popularity is in a constant growth and their audience is incredibly big: they are the YouTubers. They produce videos as part of their job, and make money out of the number of views. They can be entertainment videos, music reviews, or games videos, etc. The range of subject is extremely wide. As of today, the most popular YouTubers is called Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, best known under the name of PewDiePie. His YouTube channel reached 34million of subscriber and a total of 6.65 billion total views. He has been dominated the platform during the last year with his video games comments.
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